there were some things that were as predictable here as they’d been back in California. One unchanging truth was that meetings didn’t suddenly change from peace to bullets unless there was a reason—or treachery.
“So …?” Katherine’s fingers tapped in an impatient rhythm on the table.
“I’m going to see Governor Soanes; he’s still over in Covenant for a few days. The lindwurm job will wait till after …” Jack glanced at Mary. “I’ll see the governor, be back here before the sixth day, and then we’ll get back to work.”
“You know I’m not going to let you go to Covenant without me.” Katherine stared at him and sipped her drink as if she were calm.
But Jack had played poker with her, taught her the first of her tricks for handling the mood of a table, so he knew when she was digging in her heels. “Edgar won’t be happy if you go out without him the day after you were injured,” Jack said, “and I need him here.”
Katherine shrugged. “So tell him to stay here.”
“Spells leave you useless for a fight,” he said evenly.
“And you’re useless at spells. You need me on this one, Jackson. Just a shooter isn’t enough, or you’d be arguing more.”
Jack had tried to think of a better solution while he’d sat in the dark with his drink and his dead lover, but she was right. For most jobs, he had shooters aplenty. The Arrivals were all people who’d been on the wrong side of ethical at one point. Katherine had been a gambler and fancy woman, and Jack had been a gambler and shootist in his day. Early on, the first few people who’d come through to the Wasteland after Jack and Katherine were cut from the same cloth: willing to pull a trigger, but mostly as a consequence of the lifestyles they’d known or the skills they’d needed for survival. Most of those early Arrivals died—or joined Ajani. In more recent years, those who arrived were a mix of different sorts. Some were rough because of the things they’d had to do to survive, but more were folks whose moral compass was a bit unsteady. One of the few things they all had in common was that not a one of them since Katherine had been able to do spellwork.
Jack downed the rest of his drink. “Get your gear. I’ll tell Edgar.”
After a silent nod of acknowledgment, Katherine stood, walked over to the bed, kissed Mary’s forehead, and left. Once his sister was gone, Jack sighed. He did need her help, and they both knew it. He’d needed her to make the decision, though. Even after all of the years he’d spent raising her and the years they’d spent in this world, he could still be surprised by the choices she made. He’d expected that neither one of them would cope well being trapped in camp while they waited to see if Mary woke, but he couldn’t always be certain when it came to Katherine’s opinions or reactions.
A short while later, Jack and Katherine were ready to set out across the Gallows Desert. It was a two-day journey to Covenant if all went well, so they’d packed water, bullets, and provisions. They only took one bedroll, which Jack currently carried, as they’d have to sleep in shifts.
As they’d approached the gate to exit camp, Edgar looked directly at Jack and announced, “If she’s killed, I’ll have to shoot you.”
“I know.” Jack nodded at him and stepped outside the gate to give Edgar and Katherine a moment.
Katherine, however, huffed at her on-again, off-again lover and walked past both him and Jack.
If Jack thought for a moment that he could trust anyone else to keep order in his absence, he’d have taken Edgar along on the journey, but no one was more competent than Edgar at handling the group in Jack’s absence.
The trip across the desert and past the tiny town of Gallows was spent mostly in silence. That was one of the great joys of spending time with his sister: unlike some people—many of them women—Katherine had no patience for idle chatter. Aside from the essentials, the siblings remained quiet that day and much of the morning. As they traveled, they saw collapsed mines, starving Wastelanders, and scars on the ground from carelessly set-off explosives. Jack had already seen enough of Ajani’s footprints on this world over the years, but the destruction left behind by Ajani’s greed reaffirmed his deep-seated hatred of the man. The use of explosives in mining meant that able-bodied men were injured regularly in pursuit of riches that they’d never craved before falling under Ajani’s influence.
As Jack understood it, until Ajani had taken over the mines, mining was largely handled by those born to it. The native miners used only natural methods, as if teasing the ground to give up treasures. They never took more than what was necessary for the production of weapons or tools. They didn’t strip the grounds for the sake of stockpiling.
Then Ajani bought out, stole, or simply took over most of the mines. Now people not meant for work underground tunneled into dangerous areas, creating unstable ground on the surface, and were far too often killed in tunnel collapses. Boomtowns like Covenant had sprung up, growing too fast and resulting in dens of chaos and violence. Then, as soon as a vein was exhausted, the town died.
It was no wonder Garuda, the Wasteland’s most important bloedzuiger, hated Ajani with a depth of passion that rivaled even Jack’s. There was nothing wrong with progress, with the evolution of a society, with developments in technology, but when avarice directed progress, the natural order of a community was destroyed. Lives were lost, and the Wasteland itself was being decimated.
When Jack and Katherine entered Covenant the next day, he wasn’t sure if the uneventful journey was a blessing or not. He’d half hoped for some sort of fight to help relieve his mood, and he knew his sister wouldn’t mind a bit of outlet either. At least the exertion of travel was better than waiting next to Mary’s body.
“Not a monk in sight,” Jack said as they walked toward the governor’s quarters.
“No one else knew about the meeting, Jack. If it wasn’t the brethren, that means the governor …” Katherine’s words trailed off.
“I know, but that doesn’t make a lick of sense.” Jack gave voice to the thought that had plagued him for much of their hike across the desert. He’d weighed it out in his mind, trying to find a reason why Governor Soanes would send them into a trap. They’d worked for him from almost the time they’d arrived in the Wasteland, hunting down those who broke laws or those who were skirting close to breaking them. In some cases, they’d delivered warnings; in others, they’d executed more final orders.
“Maybe it’s personal. The brethren haven’t ever been very tolerant of the law,” Jack mused.
“Could be, but why? We haven’t taken them to task for anything.” Katherine had obviously been pondering some of the very same thoughts he had. “If Soanes had word of a threat, he should’ve told us. If he didn’t, the brethren are playing their cards awfully close to the vest.”
“Just keep your eyes open,” Jack murmured as they approached two of the governor’s guards who stood on either side of the door to the squat, faded building.
The guards hadn’t expected him, but they’d known Jack long enough that they simply nodded in greeting. One of them gave Katherine a far too friendly look, but instead of her usual harsh words or occasional physical demonstration of exactly how much she did not like being leered at, Katherine merely smiled.
Jack opened the door, and as she entered he asked in a low voice, “What was that?”
“Groundwork if we need another pair of eyes,” she answered just as quietly.
The thought of needing spies in the governor’s office wasn’t one that set well with Jack, but he was, regrettably, already suspicious enough of the governor that he didn’t object. Once they were inside, they waited while the next guard sent his partner in to inform Governor Soanes of their presence.
As they walked into the governor’s office, Jack studied the Wastelander who had been his boss of sorts for years. He was a man who’d grown increasingly larger and slower from too much time behind a desk. Unlike a lot of